Security Firm Endgame Lands $23 Million From Paladin Capital

Today it seems like there are so many cyber attacks taking place that there’s no way to keep track of them all. And chances are that if you’re running a company that deals with anything valuable, you’ve either been attacked, eventually will be, or simply don’t know it yet.

That’s making companies with new approaches to security pretty popular among venture capital and private equity investors. Today, one new firm, Endgame Systems, announced that it has landed a $23 million Series B investment led by Paladin Capital. Previous investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and TechOperators. Retired Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. Minihan, a managing director at Paladin and a former director of the super-secret National Security Agency, will join Endgame’s board.

Started in 2008, Endgame specializes in what it describes as providing real-time command-and-control capabilities, including analytics, visualization and knowledge discovery, all intended to enhance computer security efforts.

CEO Nathaniel Fick put it this way: “As Internet-connected devices become more pervasive in our lives, the barriers to entry are falling for malicious actors to have impact thanks to commoditized and easy-to-access tools,” he said. “The only way to be successful at cyber operations in a changing environment like that is to ingest massive amounts of data, analyze it in real-time and act.”

Endgame has been expanding in recent months. Fick joined as CEO late last year. Niloofar Howe joined as chief strategy officer. Matt Georgy, a former computer security officer with the Department of Defense and the Air Force before that, joined as CTO. Its chairman is Christopher Darby, the CEO of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The round brings Endgame’s total capital raised to $52 million, following a $29 million investment by Bessemer in 2010.

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